Different Loving

by William Brame

  I particularly [enjoy making] a dominant man submissive: That’s really a big kick of mine. [And] I like meeting new slaves and watching them submit. I love walking into a room and watching guys just scramble to get me a seat, to make sure that everything’s okay for me, and coming up to me to see if there’s anything they can do for me. I love the idea of being paid attention to, being paid homage to. Usually someone will come up to me after I’ve led a meeting at the Eulenspiegel Society, and we’ll go out for coffee and talk. I’ll know if I want to be with them by the body movement they have and by the way they look. [Many] men respond to me, but a lot of times I just slough them off. I have to be visually, physically, [and] mentally turned on to them. If I decide that I want to see him again, I’ll give him my card: If he calls and I really like him, we’ll set up a time [to] meet and talk [again]. I’ll ask them things about their life and what they want to do and how they want to do it. And if a man sees I’m receptive, there’s such relief; if I’ve just met them and I say, “Give me a call,” the response is “Wow, you really want me to call?” And if I like the guy, if we have any chemistry between us, I’ll know. I may touch them; I may let them kiss my feet, kiss my hand. It all depends on how I feel.

  I recently met someone who I think is an absolute dream. He answered my [personal] ad, [which] said that I wanted him to write me a 500-word essay concerning himself and how he would worship me. My ad said I was a brown goddess. On the telephone he said that we met [once] at the Eulenspiegel Society. I didn’t remember it; that’s how nondescript he was. Before inviting him over, I sent him on a treasure hunt. I wear Opium perfume, and [Bloomingdale’s was] having a sale, so I had him go pick that up. He brought that with him, and he came, and we sat here, and we just talked. We like the same things. He’s in music, so we spent three hours talking about music and the people in the business that we knew in common. [When] he got ready to leave, he [was] still nondescript to me. At the door, I turned to him and gave him a kiss on the lips. His lips were so soft, I said, “Hmmm.” I was holding his hand, and his hand was soft, and I said, “Hmmm.” [After that] we talked almost every day, and we made a date. Over dinner he told me that he had a breast piercing. [I asked], “Why did you do that?” He said, “Because I knew that one day I was going to meet a queen, and they would already be done for her. That’s you.” So at home I helped take off his shirt. I [had also] told him to buy a pair of red lace bikini panties, and [to] be wearing them. He took off his clothes, and he was wearing them. There was [his] gorgeous chest, this beautiful tan, and these things in his nipples. It just looked so hot.

  I had always wanted to attach someone to my massage table and do things to them. I put him on the table and shackled him to [it]. I started tickling him all over and playing with his breasts. I took my cat-o’-nine-tails [and] whacked him on his feet. He didn’t like the pain: Some people are turned on by that, but he wasn’t. I realized he didn’t like what I was doing to his feet; he didn’t like the pain; he liked the loving touch. I unhooked him and invited him to follow me to my bedroom. He came in, and I was lying on my bed. I looked at him and said, “You may kiss me now.” And he surrendered on the side of my bed on his knees and reached up and kissed me. It was a very romantic evening. This was something I’d never done before; his lips were so soft! It was a very romantic, beautiful thing we had, and we’ve had some wonderful times together since. We see each other a lot.

  I have another person who’s been in my life for about a year now, and he believes he was born to be submissive. I know another who believes that he was born to come to this country—he’s from Greece—and find me and be submissive to me. These two don’t really worship me, [but] I’m the most superior [and] most wonderful thing in their lives, plus I can be a sexual person with them. [With] most of the people who are submissive to me, there’s nothing sexual at all about it. The experience [of domination] is great. I enjoy it, but I [also] enjoy afterwards [when] they’re not around. I enjoy masturbating, thinking about it. It’s not something I want to do in front of them. I feel that if I become very sexual with them, I’m losing my power. Once you get into a sexual situation with another person, you kind of surrender. If I’m going to stay in power, I can’t surrender.

  It’s unbelievable that these guys enjoy worshiping me and being with me. The one I just met does not want to have an orgasm, because he always wants to have an erection, so that I can use his body in any way that I want to. My girlfriends and I have been laughing, because I said, “I’ve got to tie him to the bed. He always has such a firm erection—I could just ride up and down on him!” My girlfriends said, “You’re terrible!” [But] I’m going to one day; I just haven’t had a chance.

  I’m sometimes very sadistic. I like suspending people and whipping them very much. I like to torture their feet. I particularly like to tie cocks and balls up with rawhide. I like pinching nipples. Another thing I like is to slap their faces. I think that’s the most humiliating thing you can do to a man. My most exciting experience began at a club, playing with someone I had been seeing a couple of years. I had him suspended, and I was beating him and playing with him and kissing him. Things got so hot that we [had to] go home. We had a real romantic, unbelievably sexual thing going, but I didn’t know how submissive he really was [until then]. He really succumbed to my pain. [With] every blow I gave him, he became more sexually aroused. When I would kiss him, it was this hungering, lingering kiss. I would squeeze his nipples, and he would squirm and scream, and his dreamy blue eyes would just go crazy. It was like he was reaching out for me but couldn’t because I had his hands bound.

  I’ve lived all my fantasies. If someone’s going to be with me, he’s going to do the things I want. So I’ve done everything I want to do. I’m living the lifestyle. It’s not something I just do on Saturday. I like men who are in the Scene, [and] a lot of my friends are in the Scene, though I have straight friends, too. I find it’s the most comfortable thing for me. The people in it are the people that I want to be with. I want men and women around me who I don’t have to explain myself to, who can understand and be relaxed with it. It’s good for me.

  RALPH R.

  My wife and I have some D&S aspect in probably 50 percent of our sexual encounters, but it’s not that big an issue. When someone who doesn’t do it looks on it, it’s somewhat frightening, it’s somewhat strange. But the actual effect it has on our lives is probably less than the effect that the kind of literature we read has on our lives.

  I could cope without D&S in the same sense as I could cope without ice cream. I like ice cream a lot; it would take a lot of pleasure out of my life if I didn’t have it. So it probably wouldn’t cause me to do poorly in my job or break up my marriage, but it would take a lot of pleasure out of life.

  I’m a straight monogamous male. And, parenthetically, both my wife and I are very active in our church and consider ourselves Christians. I’ve been married for nine and a half years, with a moderately satisfactory sex life, which I guess is a reasonable way of putting it. In terms of D&S, I would be switchable if my wife were, but she really does not enjoy being submissive at all, so I’m primarily submissive, by exclusion. On the whole I’m fulfilled, trying to separate fantasy from its fulfillment—which are not always the same, as we’ve discovered in some of our experimentation. I’d like to have a more switchable relationship. I’d like to take the dominant role. My wife has submitted to me a number of times. She just gets angry. It’s really interesting, because she’s not an angry person—she’s a sweet person. But she doesn’t get excited at all. These things are done for mutual pleasure. If the pleasure isn’t mutual, you can’t do that.

  [D&S] is kept in the metaphorical bedroom, except in the context of verbal play: My wife likes to harass me about enjoying pain—not in public, but not necessarily in a sexual context either. For us, D&S is foreplay. I don’t think that [it] would be satisfying as anything [else]. It’s used as a condiment, as it were, to sex, rather than as an end in itsel
f. I think [that] as an end in itself, for me, it would be like eating black pepper: pointless. Whereas black pepper makes steak, instead of boring, much, much more interesting.

  As far as realizing when I was interested, [that was] probably during the pre- and early sexual phase of my relationship with my wife. When we were exploring our sexual relationship, it came out as something that I was interested in, and we started experimenting. [What] was most instrumental in enabling us to pursue that in the further psychological sense was finding a couple of chapters in The Joy of Sex about it. That book told me that this existed and people did it, and [there were] names [for it]. [I did] not really [have trouble coming to terms with my desires]. How do I put this? Lots of thoughts come to mind, but I never take them very seriously. I know I’m not sick.

  [My wife] likes to tie me down. We have some clothesline, and we have a couple of leather straps that she whips me with. She uses a vibrator to stimulate me anally. We have used wax in the past, but that’s just too messy and not enough fun. That is pretty much the extent of it.

  I expect I fall into the category of the greedy sub. One time my wife got satisfied early and was still a little interested, so [she] felt like spending the time to work me over a couple hours. That was probably the best we’ve ever had. Usually there’s a tension between her patience and what she’d like to do and the fact that I could go on for a long time, in just the D&S part, before ever getting to sex. [That time, it was] more prolonged. And that made it more intense and one of the most exciting experiences.

  I’ve had dominant fantasies that I don’t particularly get a chance to act out. These are related to my wife or to particularly attractive women I know. Beyond the sort of stripping-and-whipping kind of thing, the most interesting would be—and I have no idea how this would be implemented—having a woman really want to be made love to and begging. [Another fantasy] that’s really interesting to me is of my wife making love to another man while dominating me. I’ve got a pretty good idea why that’s attractive to me. She’s very attractive, and anything involving her sexually is exciting. I’m sure that’s also interesting because of the dominant symbolism in it—the notion of men competing for mates and losing in that competition.

  I haven’t thought about how D&S may or may not have affected my life. I think the only areas that it would be likely to have affected is my marriage, and I would be hard-pressed to say [how]. I think that honesty was there before and would exist without the D&S. I think that the D&S was enabled by that, but I would be skeptical if that’s a significant effect. It’s a fair statement that it enriches my life.

  RISING STAR

  I am both dominant and submissive [but] more often dominant in the outside world. I draw on what I’ve learned from dominant play. Being submissive is a very important side of me but one I protect very closely—I don’t show [it] to the outside world.

  I didn’t set out to be dominant. I did not know that I was doing anything special. The first sexual and emotional relationship that I got involved in, I was the dominant partner. But saying that it just happened because of the first couple of relationships is far too passive a way of looking at it. I think they happened because my personality is very dominant. I had fantasies of being the warrior queen as a young child, of having my choice among the captives.

  I’m married to someone who does not participate. It was hard to make a decision to marry someone outside of the lifestyle. I was involved with someone in a long-distance relationship, a mostly submissive gentleman, also switchable, who I cared a great deal for. But he was a politician in a state where I would not be happy living. Our career objectives, where we wanted to live, even religious differences all came into play.

  I began as a dominant, and I switched some. I played the other role for a very simple reason: I don’t feel comfortable using the technique unless I know how it feels. But then I had an eye-opening experience which started me toward self-discovery. I looked back on when I had submitted in the past, and I found that there were a lot of things that I had enjoyed about submitting beyond the feel of the whip or the sexual attention.

  In the past, if I had to pick one side, there would have been no question: I would have been dominant. Now if I had to pick one side, I’d have to ask an additional question: Are we talking about a lot of people or just one person? If I was talking about a single relationship, I would prefer to be submissive. I think I needed the power more before. Perhaps by being secure that I have the power if I want to use it, I’m not worried about using it, so I’m free to explore other parts of my sexuality. There’s a parallel with my work. At some points in my career I’ve had a great deal of responsibility; at other times it’s been primarily performing a technical task someone told me to do. If I have a lot of responsibilities in my life, my need to submit becomes stronger—my pleasure in letting somebody else take charge of the situation increases. Conversely, when I don’t have a lot of control over my work, the dominant side becomes stronger.

  As a submissive, what excites me is being given no choice in what’s going to happen and having to satisfy my partner in whatever way he wishes—I should say “or she.” I’ve dominated women; I think it would be interesting to submit to one. I submitted to a gentleman who’d tell me to be naked under my clothes “for my master.” Going out wearing only a dress and garter belt and stockings was not particularly exciting to me until he put it in those terms; then the sense of giving up control made it exciting. When we would go out he might choose to unbutton several buttons, or we might be in the car and he would pull my skirt up to my waist. That’s exciting! When we were driving around in the car and my skirt was pulled up and I was exposed, I could see the reaction of truck drivers around.

  As a dominant, I use other people’s fetishes, but that’s not what interests me. The most exciting fantasy—and I have done this a little bit—is the ability to bring my partners to orgasm without touching them or allowing them to touch themselves. I’ll just tell someone about something that they should imagine happening. And I watch the response. Instead of doing those things to them, I’m just talking—but if I understand what excites them well enough, that should be all I need.

  Five

  HEAD TRIPS AND ROLEPLAYING

  That god forbid that made me first your slave

  I should in thought control your times of pleasure,

  Or at your hand th’account of hours to crave,

  Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.

  O, let me suffer, being at your beck,

  Th’ imprisoned absence of your liberty …

  —SHAKESPEARE1

  No one who has ever loved is unaware of the power of a lover’s words, the infinite meanings a lover’s gestures can convey, the intoxicating ardor a lover’s glances can incite, or the cruel yet often compelling power of a lover’s rejection. All who have loved passionately have quivered at least a little, at least once, when the object of desire has cast a stormy look your way; if you haven’t, you haven’t loved.

  D&Sers have found that playing on the essential dichotomy of love, that fusion of anxiety and delight that is the soul of passion, vastly enhances their pleasure. They consciously orchestrate language and behavior so as to increase the erotic tension between dominant and submissive.

  At chapter’s end we profile:

  • Master Chris, who is 33 years old and is married with children. He owns a software company and operates an electronic bulletin board.

  • Anne is 40 and married with children. She has worked in medical and behavioral research and has taught emotionally disturbed children.

  • Lance is in his late 40s and works in the fine arts business. He is married to Trudi.

  • Trudi is 47 years old. She is a sculptor.

  WHAT IS IT?

  A head trip is a mental game in which a dominant upsets—or audaciously fulfills—the expectations of a submissive. The express purpose is to make a submissive feel little or no control over events or even over emotion
s in the moment. Erotic head trips are phenomena separate and distinct from the tales of dreary psychological cruelty that fill talk-shows. Instead of sparking alienation, a D&S head trip creates a bond; instead of shaking a person’s emotional foundation, erotic head trips provide a safe outlet for fantasies.

  Seen from the outside, a head trip can baffle—even outrage—the uninformed observer. When one witnesses, for example, a grown man being scolded like a child, chastised for disobedience, or threatened with a bizarre humiliation—such as being forced to wear a dog collar—it is easy enough to believe that some lunacy is afoot, and either that the submissive is being involuntarily abused or, even worse, so downtrodden as to crave mistreatment.

  From the inside, however, a head trip is, first of all, a mutually consensual act, a private conspiracy between partners who establish clear rules and limits. Head trips may include unpredictability and anticipation with a goal of mutually erotic gratification. In this consensual context, emotions that would normally be distressing or hurtful—such as embarrassment, confusion, and anxiety—are instead electrifying. Head trips may, at times, permit submissives to face insecurities and fears with a safety net; for dominants, the ability to control a partner psychologically can be intensely exciting.

  Many D&Sers say that a well-crafted intuitive head trip can be as exciting as any physical act. This may be the reason that psychological domination tends to be particularly popular among imaginative D&Sers.